The Writing Prompt Boot Camp

November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 22

For a collection (whether poetry, music, or whatever), I really like it when the individual pieces communicate with each other. So, for today’s poem, I want you to pick one of your earlier poems from this month and write a poem that is a response to that earlier poem.

To make it very immediate, you could write a response to yesterday’s confessional poem. Or you could reach back to Day 17’s Love Poem, Day 7’s Myth Poem, etc. I’m sure those reading along would love it if you include to which day’s poem you are responding, too.

For my part, I think I’ll respond to my Day 20 poem, which is also the longer version of Day 3’s refrain poem. Talk about some interconnectedness.

“Right now without that paper,
If his heart were to stop
We’d have to shock him, you know,”
Implying what a fair swap
Would be the handover exchange
But what he failed to see:
By relinquishing living will,
I’d give up a part of me.

The summer girls are living next door to each other, a half a mile of fallow field between their houses. All summer long they wear a path through the wildflowers, eating breakfast at one house, lunch at the other, writing poems and playing Hearts, tubing down the river in the hot afternoons. One is a live-in babysitter, taking care of a city family’s five children, the youngest is a baby, the oldest almost twelve. It’s nothing to her, she has fifteen brothers and sisters at home, she can’t remember all their ages, but she sure
knows a lot of card games.

The other girl is visiting her grandmother, they share the same room. At night the old woman sits on the edge of her bed and undoes her bun, a rope of twisted hair, strands of white and grey streaked with silver, spilling around her shoulders like a mane. After the light is switched off, the girl lies in her bed listening to her grandmother’s snores, deep and steady for a long time, then, all of a sudden, silence. She holds her breath, counting, “one-one hundred, two-one hundred, three” like waiting for thunder after the first flash of lightening, until her grandmother inhales sharply, sputters, resumes her sonorous song. Sometimes she wakes to the smell of smoke, her grandmother standing by the window, the red glow from a cigarette tracing lines in the dark.

The last night of vacation the girls go back and forth through the field, walking through flickering light and shadow, each not wanting to be the last to say goodnight, goodbye.
At last they lie down on their backs in the center of the field, fingers intertwined, their eyes grainy from lack of sleep, above them the morning star swimming in a froth of blue,
something worth keeping

Judy – I’ve just been browsing back, reading things I might have missed the first go ’round and I came to your "Answers:" – I don’t mind telling you, it made me weep. You tell a heart-breaking story with a poignant eloquence, and I don’t imagine any of it gets told easily. I applaud your courage and look for your work every day. Sharon I.

This was the hardest prompt for me. It really had my searching in the depths. I picked the "love" poem to respond to. The first stanza is my love poem, the second is my response and so on.

Answers :

I loved my Dad,
He said he loved me
that I was special
and the abuse got worse.
Misplaced love. Loss of childhood.

I did love you, Judy
I didn’t know how to show
you were special to me
but alcohol was more important
I got caught up in a cycle
People can only give what they have.

My first husband said
he loved me and would
even spout scripture as
he beat my head against the wall.
Mistaken love. Loss of dreams.

I wanted you to be my wife
I wanted to love you, too
I didn’t know how to be a husband
I didn’t know how to be a man
Sometimes people try hard but they don’t have the tools

I love you like my own mother
said Gracie before she pulled off
the burglary of our business and
took everything meaningful to me
from our safe, not to mention the money.
Con love. Loss of safety.

I loved you like my own mother, Judy
Just like I told you I did
My mother abandoned me when I was two
I only imagined she’d care like you
I left Mexico with good intentions
I’m sorry you got caught in my failure

to be the type of person you thought I was.

The Bible says Jesus loves me
I believed, I knew he’d take care
of my children, that was my only prayer.
Enchanted love. Loss of faith.

You are precious to me, Jesus says
through the Bible he tells me so
though I’ve had my life shattered
along with my faith
I’m trying to pick up the pieces
never doubting for one moment
He was there. I wouldn’t be here
if he didn’t care.

I love you, Mom, I love you so much
were the last words
I ever heard from my son
before he died by his own hand.
Sometimes love just isn’t enough.
Loss of heart.

I know you loved me son, I believe that
with all my heart. I know you couldn’t stay
you weren’t strong enough. You knew we’d
carry on where you couldn’t. We’d find our
way, your love is our light. You couldn’t have
known how deep our love for you. You weren’t
a father, you couldn’t know. I forgive you
I love you I always will. You’re my boy,
my precious, my son.

If you were to ask and I to tell
how he both stayed and left himself,
what had been his body,
his life late that night,
left me and his two daughters

And how the four of us, a few others
tramped along, pushed him, we filling in,
filling up his silence, his awkward moves,
and our wanting something different

How he saved his blue-eyed smile
flashed it broad and cheery, and
how we each worked to return favor,
a bit of laughter when we could

And if you asked, I could go on and on
about copying, routines and how he delivered
the daily news, his two girls riding high
on the pile, pointing out which door

How driving skills remained though words failed him,
how smiling and retaking one test and another and…
until his persistence earned a roade test,
his driving won the smile of the stiff officer

If you were to ask him anything,
he’d brighten; maybe find a word or two
like ‘fine or bad on long-time-ago,’ speak it
with slim shadow of emotion, return to his book,
his 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle, or TV sports event
unless it’s time for dinner.
Then he’d release the footed chair rest,
move to get his jacket never grumbling
at the stuffing he must do to cram one
weak arm through the length of sleeve.

Moving on, making one more day,
remembering where we lived,
what roads we’ve traveled,
which ones we yet intend to map,
some remnants for my writing pen.
if you should ask…

Fear not
you to whom I owe such gratitude
Though we may not see
that promised tax cut right now
may not achieve
health insurance for a year or two
and may not get our troops
out of harms way for a term still
I have not forgotten you
Fear not
for I labor daily
to one day fulfill my promises
I will not sit in comfort
or sleep deeply in a silken bed
or revel in stately splendor
until the soldiers come home
until the market has calmed
until you who are hungry are fed
and you who are sick find healing
I am Barack Obama
and I approve this message

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